Deeplinks Blog posts about Search Incident to Arrest

Should the police be allowed to warrantlessly collect and index the DNA of people merely arrested for a crime, while they are still cloaked in the presumption of innocence and have not been found guilty of anything? Over and over again, we've warnedcourts throughout the country the answer is no, and it now looks like judges are taking notice, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

DNA is the most intimate and revealing part of the human body, with the potential to reveal a person -- and their family's -- medical history and predisposition to disease. Because it's so sensitive, we've filed an amicus brief (PDF) in the California Supreme Court urging it to rule that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the warrantless collection of DNA from individuals presumed innocent who are not yet convicted of a crime.

At first blush, it seems obvious that a picture could reveal your location. A picture of you standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge sensibly leads to the conclusion you're in the San Francisco Bay Area when the photo was taken. But now that smartphones are quickly supplanting traditional digital cameras, and even traditional cameras now have wifi built in, many more pictures are finding their way onto the web, in places like Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and Tumblr.